short story

“Congratulations,” or whatever.

She felt happy one evening walking home.

She held a large paper bag in her arms and thought: This is what it feels like to do something for someone else. This is what it feels like to love them.

She stopped at the store to get India Pale Ale because earlier that day Mark forwarded an email to her that contained his annual professional review along with a note he wrote specifically to her. The review was very positive and was written by the senior professor who observed Mark’s class a few weeks before. His note said: I am not the worst person in the world. She knew he was relieved and happy.

She knew, also, that he loved India Pale Ale. She spoke to the attractive shopkeeper who was a hipster well versed on topics such as novelty beer and who suggested a variety of specialty IPAs. She asked a lot of questions because she did not drink beer and when she chose a particular assortment, the shopkeeper told her it was a good gift. If someone got me this, he said, I’d be very happy. She was inexplicably proud to have this stranger’s approval and happily walked home with a six-pack of unusual and fancy IPAs, including a seasonal, two locals and three with different types of hops to compare.

As she walked through the park she thought about the note she would write for the beer and also the note she would write for the front door.

A few months before Mark’s positive review, she received her own critique in class. It was her first critique ever as a writing student and she had been very anxious. Every Monday night from 7:00-10:00 p.m. over the course of ten weeks, she’d had flu symptoms.

Her skin all blotchy-red, sticky, was embarrassed to exist or be associated with her. Her brain was distracted with worry that her mouth would say something ridiculous, give the rest of her away so everyone would realize how not-talented, how not-smart she actually was, meaning she would have to finally accept it was actually, really true.

Mark, who had encouraged her to take the course in the first place. He’d said: You should keep at this. Truly. after he read a few pages of something or other. It made her feel lighter. She thought: this is what ‘Possibility’ must feel like. It was a good feeling. Like love.

Mark sat in the living room on the orange puffy chair with blue diamond shapes late that night, reading the New Yorker, waiting to hear how it went. Filled with such an enormous relief, she was compelled to dance from their entryway into and through the living room to Mark, making up some moves, which ended up being some combination of the running man and ninja-like kicks. And to answer the unspoken question hovering in the air between them, she sang the first thing that came to her:

I’m not
the worst person
in the world.

Which she later realized was likely inspired by a lyric her good friend Jake wrote:

I’m the
greatest singer
in the world.

The line felt so beautiful, so sad. Lonely, she thought. And she loved it.

To say she was an awful singer would give her too much credit. She could not be called a singer at all. Nor a dancer. Perhaps because of this, the extemporaneous song and dance made Mark laugh.

He knew she was relieved and happy. It seemed her classmates did not hate what she made, she told him. And from then on whenever either one of them was relieved and happy or had accomplished anything of any sort, one or the other of them said: I’m not the worst person in the world.

Now, there she was, walking through the trees on the winding paths through their park, the dappled sunlight coating the late afternoon, thinking about what she should write. On the front door she thought she might post a notice of eviction:

EVICTION NOTICE:

To: The worst person in the world.


(All those who are not the worst person in the world may enter).

As for a note on the beer—it’d be scrawled in black marker on plain white paper, she thought, hastily taped to the six-pack, as if one could scarcely bother to take the time to congratulate him. That would be funny.

“Congratulations,”
Or Whatever.

It would say.

And so, on the day Mark received a good review, she grabbed two sheets of plain paper from the printer’s tray and rummaged through the kitchen drawer to find a large black Sharpie. She felt good and purposeful and thought: This is what it feels like to love someone.

On the first sheet of plain paper, she wrote her “Congratulations.” On the second she scrawled out an eviction notice that would not evict either of them.

Later that night when he got home she would hear the silence as he paused outside the front door, his keys settling in the doorknob for a moment, and his familiar “Ha!”

She would almost hear his smile.

Heartpartment.

Mark gave her cards. 

All the time for every occasion from every conceivable source. 

For instance, once after getting over a cold, Mark gave her a card signed by his “Throat, Nose and Chest,” thanking her for taking care of them the weekend before. 

On another occasion, because she had bought him a vintage 1940’s messenger bag— one much nicer than his, six years old and falling to pieces—she received a thank you card signed “Regards, the 1940s.” 

Once Mark left a card on her pillow: “On behalf of all trees everywhere, can you stop doing such wonderful things?” 

On the week of her 34th birthday, “Entertainment TM” sent her a series of seven cards, one each day, all outlining parts of “The 7 Wonders of Erin’s Birthday,” (Tagline: The pyramids ain’t got shit on this TM). 

Each card was typographically decorated by him, because at some point she happened to take a typography course. She learned things, but Mark always picked up on things so easily. And from mere end-of-day, how-was-your-day conversations.  It did frustrate her slightly. She often sat at her desk paralyzed, unable to put what she learned into action, yet here were Mark’s cards. They were pretty remarkable. Especially for a Literature Professor.

The first Christmas they shared at his family’s home in London, Mark assembled a dossier outlining the Characters, Scenes, and Acts she should expect upon arrival.  He drafted ten pages of detailed information regarding familial structure, potential inter-familial intrigue and drama, and probable events. All this because she was so nervous to meet everyone-at-once, while staying in such close, unknown quarters. The document was sent to her from “The M.H. Festive Consortium in partnership with EAD Foundation for the Entertainment of EAD.”  MH and EAD of course being their initials. 

Much earlier, before they lived together, he once slipped her a card with keys to his “heartpartment.” 

He was very creative, very funny.

Sometimes when she received these notes and novels, she thought he must love her very, very much.

It wasn’t until much later, sitting on the sofa, reading through stacks of cards and notes, that she realized how little she had actually appreciated them back then. She hadn’t appreciated them enough, not as much as she should have, at all. 

A story about a girl.

This is a story about a girl in Brooklyn.

This girl I know, when she was a freshman in high school, she didn’t go to prom because she thought she’d have had to sex with whoever it was that she went with. That was enough to stop her. She had no idea about sex, or what she was supposed to do, or any sense of her own body or that her body might enjoy it. She had no curiosity about it whatsoever, or so she thought, she recognized only a strong desire to avoid. Once, in sophomore year, when she refused a boy, telling him her parents wouldn’t let her go to prom, which was not at all true, he got hold of her sandal and threw it on the roof.

It was worth it, she thought, on her way home, her foot pressing the down the clutch, as she shifted into second gear, shoeless.

And when her first boyfriend, age 16 just like her— a redheaded boy who drove a pristine 1966 Red Mustang, who played on the football and soccer teams, who she liked well enough — asked to meet her after school, she was sure it was because he’d changed his mind since the day before. She dreaded it all day, but met him in the school parking lot at 3:05 pm, and then drove home feeling ridiculous, having found out her jock boyfriend just wanted see her and say hi before practice, not, as she had thought, break up with her. Why would he want to break up with her? He just asked her to go steady 12 hours ago.

Why would he want to break up with her? He just asked her to go steady 12 hours ago.

She let him feel her up out in one of the pecan orchards his family owned, blanket sprawled across the Mustang’s hood, a full sky of stars visible between branches and leaves. Girls were supposed to do this with boyfriends. She doesn’t remember pleasure or joy or excitement or desire or curiosity. Was it like that for other girls? she wondered. From what she could tell, it seemed other girls felt excited to go about it. Curious and playful. Giggly. Interested. Why weren’t they afraid?

In college, this girl never seemed to have a boyfriend during the school year. She remembered winter nights alone at the kitchen table, books sprawled out, the house dark and quiet, blanket over her lap. It felt like magic, the girl thought, looking back, how each spring or summer she’d find herself out somewhere in the evening with a boyfriend; the next winter back with her books and blanket, alone, dark and quiet house. Did she want it that way? She must have. It was too perfectly timed. She was focused on the Personality Psychology Research Ph.D. program at Toronto University. On whatever would get her there.

It felt like magic, the girl thought, looking back, how each spring or summer she’d find herself out somewhere in the evening with a boyfriend; the next winter back at the table with her books and blanket, alone in the dark and quiet house. Did she want it that way? She must have. It was too perfectly timed. She was focused on the Psychology Ph.D. program at Toronto University. On whatever would get her there.

Which was interesting in retrospect because this girl was a poor researcher in regard to so many human things: sex and men and dating. And in regard to her friend’s experiences, which would have been useful to know for reference. She rarely asked or confided. And of course, by extension, in regard to herself. Overwhelmed by thoughts and questions. Uncertain how to address them. Unable to conceive of the state of knowing, and certainly more comfortable without possibility of mistake or rejection.

It was true this girl’s first boyfriend in college, the older boy next door, who saw her studying at the kitchen table on weekend nights, yelled through his own kitchen window that she ought to be getting out until finally she let him take her — that boy dumped her in large part for her apparent lack of sexual curiosity. Fear of it. It must have been strange for him, already graduated from college, to encounter her. Naive, young and staid, from a small town with no buses, now enrolled in one of the most liberal universities, full of Birkenstocks and drugs of all sorts and gays and lesbians and third world feminist courses.

The girl’s most embarrassing moment remains the fact that at age 18 she brought her childhood retainers to his house the first night she slept over. She recalls laying next to him staring at the ceiling after making out with him, debating whether it was time to put them on, trying to predict, based on no data whatsoever, whether they’d be kissing more later that night. It was, after all, her first sleepover with a male. Did people kiss later, too?

Looking back, she was thankful she didn’t have childhood head-gear. It could have been worse.

All manners of new things.

What happened was:

After they got engaged, she felt increasingly anxious about the things she usually felt anxious about and began to worry about all manners of new things she’d never worried about before.

She began thinking she should do things. And, since she really had no idea what things she should do, she thought the first thing she ought to do was research what things exactly needed to be done. 

It turned out there were practical things like rings and ceremonies and parties and invitations and dresses and hairstyles, and surrounding these practical things there were other things like debates she was supposed to have with various people about what and which and when, and who – including who should do x or y but not a or b – and discussions about whether the whole thing should be about this or that and/or not-about-that or not-about-this. And of course, there was the cost of things. 

She should look up places that had various wedding-related items and advice, she thought. And so she could make the proper decisions, she should probably look up the meaning of things. For instance the different parts of the ceremony, and whether a particular part should be included or excluded based on its meaning and whether it made sense for her, for them. She should talk to the minister. Not that they had agreed on who he was yet, but John-the-minister was also Aida’s husband and a friend, and it’d be nice to have him officiate, which is what she thought they called it. Officiating? She was not Episcopalian necessarily, but she’d been to his services now and again. And mostly, he was down-to-earth, born and raised in Queens, hilarious and smart. He once, just on his way out to conduct a funeral, walked around the living room that she and Aida sat drinking tea, and dressed in his formal minister attire, swung a set of cow-bells, predicting that no one would really know if it was appropriate or even really care if he just started wandering around the funeral with the cow bells, swinging them as though they were incense at a Greek Orthodox or Catholic Mass. “They wouldn’t even think it was crazy if I did this,” he said, swinging them around, the cowbells clanking loudly and hurting all of their ears. This is why she loved John.

She should ask if he would speak about Carl Jung at the wedding because John-the-minister loved Carl Jung and she did too, and that would be quite fun, she thought and better than the regular religious messaging. Maybe he could reference Star Wars, too. Or at least Joseph Campbell.

There was so much to learn and decide and none of them were particularly appealing to spend her time researching, she thought. Except maybe talking with John, who was always fun to talk to anyway.

Perhaps she ought to see if the neighborhood bar would allow them to take over the place and have a dance party. Although she had never really envisioned doing anything other than going to a courthouse someday, if she ever really even envisioned that, she did have fantasies of hosting a killer dance party. She liked to dance very much.

Remember yourself.

When her mother came to visit, she watched and listened and up in the guest room on the third floor she sat on the bed with her laptop and searched for apartments on Craigslist.

And when she was about to leave, she hugged her daughter, pressed a list of addresses scribbled down on a piece of scratch paper into her daughter’s palm. In the margins, scribbled contact numbers and monthly rents. A rough budget.

You can leave, she told her daughter. You can do it. You are stronger than you feel. 

Remember yourself, she said.

Housemates. [The Rug, pt. 7]

There would be housemates if she left, she thought, staring at the white ceiling, her body spread out across the jagged diamonds. It wasn’t that she didn’t like housemates categorically, although over the years some did cause her a great deal of trouble. What bothered her was the fact that she was young then, but she wasn’t now. Youth and housemates seemed appropriate to one another. But she was nearly thirty-seven, her birthday just months away, and at this new age it did not seem right to live with adults you were not sleeping with. Sleeping in the same bed, she meant, of course, because although Mark and she shared the same bed, of course they hadn’t slept together in ages. That was the problem. Or the symptom. Was it the problem or they symptom? She didn’t know.

In this regard she supposed she already had a housemate. The central difference being that an actual housemate would have their own bed, preferably in their own room. It was true that other than a shared bed, the odd kiss hello or goodbye, a hand every so often placed upon her knee, Mark and a housemate could easily be confused. Which made her think, alternatively: perhaps having a housemate at age 37 would not be so bad after all.

He was not the kind who caused a great deal of trouble; he was a lovely housemate. He was pleasant and tidy. It was true he sometimes left the clean dishes in the dish tray for too long and that his disheveled office resembled a college dorm room, even the odor. Which admittedly was as endearing as annoying. And she knew it was only fair she put away the dishes, since he so often washed them, and that he should have a space of his own that he kept however he pleased. She rarely entered his office, anyway.

Mark was so pleasant and tidy, so discreet and quiet, that she sometimes felt alone in the apartment. But she knew he was there, and she knew he always thought of her. There were clues. For instance: from his less-than-tidy office he often forwarded her links to interesting online articles and reviews of music and TV shows. A spread featuring LCD Soundsystem or a review of the new Wild Beasts album, a YouTube video parodying The Wire, or a feature on Bruce Springsteen.

Each week he set aside the New York Times Sunday Review and the New Yorker for her on the dining room table, dog-earing the pages so she would know which stories she ought to read. In these tasks he was incredibly discriminating, always finding the articles he knew she would enjoy, the precise information she would find interesting, weeding out all the rest. He knew her so well, how she became overwhelmed by the pages, the abundance; the choice. It was too much to decide to read this over that. Without him, she it was very likely she would not read the New Yorker or Sunday Review at all.

She knew he was there. There were always traces. The rugs and floors clean, the clothes folded, or the refrigerator full. Dog eared pages.

Somehow, still, she felt alone in the apartment. Perhaps it was because he so often changed course just to suit her. And literally, so that she moved throughout their home without any obstruction whatsoever. It seemed nothing was ever in her way. He accommodated her in every way. Which was quite liberating, of course. Yet she often found herself wishing that something, someone—he—might block her way every now and again, that something in the world would stop her, so she might know where she ended and everything else began.

With nothing to bump into, the world felt amorphous, immersive; a permeable thing.

A mistake, A challenge.

Is this a challenge?

Is this a mistake?

She wondered about that.

It was difficult to tell which was which, too many things terrified her. She was too often impelled by fear, which obfuscated the meaning of things, she knew. If only desire drove her, she would know what was a challenge, what was a mistake.

Wouldn’t she?

It was a decision. That’s why she was terrified. She had a hard time with decisions.

Which made sense, given the pros and cons were all the same, whether it were a or b.  Either way: It was terrifying. It was a challenge. It was a possibly a mistake. These were the pros. These were the cons.

She could think herself into spiraling circles until she was paralyzed and dizzy. Which she often did.

In the end, she made choices based on nothing at all, really. Nothing but impulse.

An Introduction

This is Jayne – the woman who dated Thomas While-We-Were-Living-Under-the-Same-Roof.

That’s how Karen introduced her.

…

The corner outside Thomas’s apartment in Old Town. It’s spring, mid-afternoon, sunny. The trees along the street just budding. Shadows: dappled. Karen: waiting.

Jayne’d forgotten Karen would be there to pick up Corrine. It was Karen’s weekend.

Moments before: The three of them scrambling to cross the street. Thomas carrying Corrine’s backpack, stuffed and half-zipped, Corrine with soppy chocolate ice cream cone in one hand, her hand in the other. They are late. It happens in two seconds, rushing to beat the light: Corrine drops her cone, ice-cream-first, onto the pavement. Jayne dips down, scoops and places the ice cream cone back into Corrine’s expectant hand. One movement.

They make it across before the light changes. Nearly home. No honking cars or families flattened. The ice cream cone remarkably in one piece. No tears. Child content with slightly grubby treat. You learn to keep things moving when you have a 2-year old.

3-second rule? Jayne says to Corrine’s father as they land on the sidewalk, the first moment she actually realizes what she’s done. He shrugs. Too many other things to worry about.

The sidewalk: safe, then not so safe. The Ex there, on the corner. Of course, Jayne thinks, it’s what we’re late for. How could it have slipped her mind? Karen half-waves at Thomas, then waves-excitedly at Corrine. Karen’s father, Corrine’s grandfather, stands beside her, smiling.

Jayne had just given Karen’s daughter an ice cream cone she’d scooped off the street.

She anticipates a comment, but nothing’s said about the chocolate-flavored cone adorned with asphalt sprinkles. Instead, Karen introduces Jayne: Dad, this is Jayne — The Woman Who Dated Thomas While We Were Living Under the Same Roof.

It’s shocking-and-not-shocking. Surprising-and-unsurprising. Jayne’s amazed, again, how these feelings can strike at once. Karen has become remarkable to her in this way. Part of her forever waiting for it; the other part never believing it when it finally arrived. Jayne’s belief-and-disbelief.

Thomas interjects. Jed, this is Jayne. Jayne this is Jed Moretti, Corrine’s grandfather. Thomas is used to it. The un/surprise, the dis/belief.

Karen is technically correct, perfectly so. It’s the litigator in her. It is true they were Living Under The Same Roof. Thomas had moved back in when Corrine was born, took the guest room in their old Victorian in the Valley.

Things were in-between and the two lawyers hired other lawyers to fill out papers and divvy things up. The lawyers’ lawyers talked often. They had arguments and made offers and counter offers and not-so-veiled-threats. In the meantime, he would live in the guest room, marvel at his newborn daughter, and help with feedings and diapers as much as he could.

Before all that, in the beginning, there had been no wedding for his friends to attend and none of them were surprised – Of course, they all said, his friends shrugging together. Thomas, always capricious. Thomas had written to tell Jayne about Karen and the solo wedding. It was longhand on a funny letterhead he made from scratch, a picture of himself in the upper right-hand corner pointing to the intersection of Mullet & B Streets. He loved Karen’s fiery hair, he wrote, Karen’s blue eyes, her sophisticated upper-class Jersey-Italian background. Karen was whip-smart.

Jayne was impressed to learn that Karen had named her cat Guido.

Jayne had looked forward to knowing Karen someday, the wife of her friend, Thomas. But by the time they’d finally meet, she’d never really get to meet her. The next thing Jayne heard, Thomas was having a baby and getting a divorce all-at-once. His description changed slightly. Still whip-smart, now also bat-shit-crazy; spoiled rather than sophisticated. They would co-parent, he said. Though bat-shit-crazy, Karen would be a good mom.

Now, Corrine, on her hip working on her ice cream. Nice to meet you, Mr. Moretti, Jayne says, hoisting Corrine over.

Nice to meet you, he says.

She is grateful for the hand he extends.

Fuck you, Karen, Jayne sdid not say.

Were they in court, she’d take issue with the term “dating.” Objection your honor. “Date: noun. An engagement to go out socially with another person, often out of romantic interest.” And how would this be possible with an entire country, 3,000 miles of land, between them? Is it not true that my client Thomas, lived in San Francisco at the time in question? And my client Erin lived in New York City, did she not? How could they possibly be ‘dating,’ Mrs. — excuse me – Ms. Moretti?”

That, also, was technically correct.

But, Jayne’d often thought, she would be upset too, were she in Karen’s place. Things hadn’t gone to plan. They hadn’t worked out. Karen was alone, for now at least. Why wasn’t he? A woman Karen didn’t know would take care of her only child; he had decided it without her. Thomas would decide many things without her now; there was nothing she could do. Now, this woman would help choose what food to buy, which snacks to prepare, the clothes their daughter would wear.

It was unfair. All of it. Surely. Just standing there, Jayne’s presence confirmed the injustice, a silent reminder of Karen’s place, just as Karen made sure to remind her of hers.

If it had been said to Karen’s girlfriend, pointing Jayne out across a room, she’d have understood. But to Karen’s own father, while they all stood there?

Jayne watches Jed hold Corrine, wipe the dried chocolate ice cream from her cheeks. She imagines him embarrassed, disappointed by his daughter’s sense of entitlement, her recklessness. Or is he just sad and upset for Karen? How did she get here? A stressful job, a new town, a daughter to raise, no husband. How could Thomas do this to her? Did she do this to herself? It wasn’t what he envisioned. It wasn’t what the future was supposed to become.

She imagined her own father. He’d look nothing like Jed, who wears khaki pleated pants, his button down tucked-in, brown belt, and matching shoes. His hair neat. Her father would surely be in sneakers, the different colored neon laces on each shoe left untied purposefully, a conversation piece. Loose sweat-shirt and cargo shorts, some goofy hat. Hair wavy and wild.

They’d look nothing alike but she imagined her father equally as kind. Ignoring the undercurrents and the voltage. He too would look her in the eye, whoever she was. Say her name, shake her hand. Focus on the little one with ice cream. Maybe try and sneak a bite when Corrine wasn’t looking. Always trying to steal away the moment.

She imagined him worrying about the child he held in his arms.

She remembers that Karen left her book in the stroller last week, Jayne had put it in her bag, meaning to give it back. Thomas and Karen are talking, likely sorting out when and where to pickup Corrine Monday.

It is possible there is nowhere to go from here. It is possible there is nothing Jayne can do.

She fishes the book out of her bag and hands it to Mr. Moretti.

Karen’s, she says.

Wednesday evenings.

They dreaded it. Both of them did.

On Wednesday evenings, at the sound of the buzzer, Mark and she walked up the narrow staircase and sat on the futon sofa that lay too low to the ground, their knees practically in their faces, and they waited. A short distance across the room, an old fan rested on a wooden chair next to a pile of old Psychology Today magazines. On the small table to their right sat the only children’s toy in the waiting room, a curves-and-waves rollercoaster, its red and blue and yellow wooden beads hanging from curving wires at various low points.

Fitting for this office, she had thought more than once, staring at the static, but colorful beads, how many analogies and metaphors might reside in a toy like that?

At exactly six-o-clock the counselor invited them into her office. There, they took seats on opposite sides of an old brown sofa full of pillows, and faced the counselor. A bookshelf crammed with psychoanalytic texts sat in the far corner of the room and whenever she didn’t know where to place her gaze, which was often, she found herself staring at their spines.

They spoke about each other in second and third person interchangeably for an hour. Sometimes they would say you did/said x or y and sometimes they would look at the counselor and say s/he did/said x or y. Sometimes they would use each other’s names. She tried to work out whether or not there was a pattern to their use of second and third person, but she couldn’t keep track of how and when they used each. It seemed there was a lot to keep track of, even though there were only three people sitting in a rather sparse room and just one person speaking at any given time.

She noticed how far apart they sat from each other and how Mark folded his arms and crossed his legs and leaned back and also how he would take twice as long as she did to make his points. His points were not any more or less complicated than hers and she often predicted them long before he finished.

It was true that counseling was the hardest thing to do, especially with someone else. It required special care for her to keep her mind open during these types of conversations, ones that often focused on how wrongheaded she’d been at this moment or that, whether the moment under scrutiny was three years ago one Saturday morning she couldn’t even remember but was clearly important to Mark, for instance, or Friday of last week.

She listened to the others speak about her in second and third person, desperately fighting to control the counter-attacks rising within her, the series of Yes-Buts, the examples in which he had been Just Like Her—But he did the same thing!—Or the times in which he was responsible for her more unbecoming choices—If only he hadn’t, she wouldn’t have. Etcetera.

She did find it astonishing that Mark remembered so many moments, so many dates and times, in so much detail, and for so long. She envied his capacity to remember. And so specifically.

Once, upon a random request from their friends, he had counted from memory exactly how many Shakespearean scenes featured monkeys and described each in detail. Her friends left in awe. She didn’t much care for Shakespeare, but she, too, respected his cosmic knowledge of it. 

On Wednesdays his capacity for recall had its rather obvious disadvantages. The crisp memory of some Saturday morning three years ago when she had, standing in the kitchen, with a mouthful of cereal, asked if he ever considered going to a shrink, implying not so subtly a certain failure and incompetence on his part — it was not the thing she wanted remembered. Clearly, she supposed, since she herself had forgotten it.

The truth was: It wasn’t that he remembered. Or even that she looked so ugly. What upset her the most was that Mark slept next to her for so long, for so many years, without telling her. It was that she always learned about him so late.

And so, on Wednesdays, she often wondered who exactly was sitting next to her. It sometimes felt as though she didn’t know him at all. Sometimes when she wished he had told her this or that already, it was because she respected him more knowing it, however good or bad it made her feel. But sometimes when she learned x or y, she wondered how she could have ever loved him at all. Sometimes she hated him. Or herself. Sometimes, sitting on that old sofa facing the counselor, she felt it would never work. She thought all of it was pointless. Neither of them would ever change, would they? Did anyone? 

Somehow, regardless, at the end of the session, when they walked down the stairs outside onto the sidewalk, they hugged each other.

She always felt closer to him for having gone through it, for having gotten through the hour.

Sean Penn.

It was because of Sean Penn. It was because of a lot of things and then it was because of Sean Penn. Because Sean Penn looked so different in Milk and she couldn’t believe it and so she looked up photographs and compared different Sean Penns. That’s why. The difference between his massiveness in Mystic River and his frailness in Milk. How he took up so much space and then took up so little. She thought: That. Is. Amazing.

She was laughing and looking at Sean Penns on her computer. Hey, she said, Check. This. Out! Sean Penn looks SOoo different.

And Thomas turns to her, and—just like this—he says: Jesus Christ, Erin. I’m SICK of hearing about fucking Sean Penn!

I don’t fu-cking CARE. That’s what he said. Just like that. And stormed out of the room.

Corrine was at her grandmother’s and they just got home from seeing Milk, so she swears she couldn’t have been talking about Sean Penn for long, maybe a half hour—a half hour off-and-on—max. It wasn’t days or anything. She doesn’t even have that kind of attention span.

He hated her, she thought. Or at least he hated when she was happy or excited. That’s what she realized, staring at Sean Penns after he left the room: she realized something about her excitement made him miserable.

It struck her: Maybe someone else would be excited with her. Or happy for her. Some other person might like her.

That’s what she thought, staring at Sean Penns after he left the room.